EastEnders’ controversial cot death storyline drew a massive 10.7m viewers to BBC1 on Tuesday - one of the soap’s highest audiences in nearly 12 months.

The storyline, which has attracted criticism after featuring Ronnie Branning (Samantha Womack) swapping her dead baby with Kat Moon’s (Jessie Wallace) live newborn, continued with an average of 10.68m (42.9%) viewers from 7.30pm to 8pm.

The drama peaked with an audience of 11.15m (43.7%) at 7.50pm, according to overnight Barb figures supplied by Attentional.

Aside from the Christmas Day episode - which generated 11.4m (43.2%) viewers - previous high figures centred around the Archie Mitchell murder last year, which peaked with 16.6m during a live episode on February 21.